


if i'm in an airport, and you're in a hospital bed (what kind of man does that make me?)

by Simpliicity



Series: Storms & Coffee [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, For Erica because I fucking love her and our babies, Heart Attacks, Hospitals, I'M BEN SOLO AND THAT'S MY WIFE -John Mulaney voice-, One Big Happy Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22413124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Simpliicity/pseuds/Simpliicity
Summary: Han has a heart attack. Ben is frantic, but Rey takes charge.
Relationships: Leia Organa/Han Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Storms & Coffee [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1614100
Comments: 10
Kudos: 88





	if i'm in an airport, and you're in a hospital bed (what kind of man does that make me?)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raindropwaltz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raindropwaltz/gifts).



> Another insight into mine & @raindropwaltz's fantastic modern AU Reylo RP.
> 
> I told you it was going to be emo. You knew what you signed up for.
> 
> I've been acting like I'm strong but the truth is, I've been losing ground  
> To a hospital too crowded, a summer winding down  
> I hadn't seen a heart break until now  
> I hadn't felt a heart break until now
> 
> Title & lyrics from Dismantling Summer by The Wonder Years.

He ignores the first call.

When he sees his mother’s name flash across the screen, the background blank as most of his contacts were—save Rey’s, only because she’d already set her own picture as a silly one of the two of them together—his finger immediately presses the button on the side of his phone, causing it to disappear and immediately reappear as a missed call alert. They’ve only been talking again for a few weeks, and he’s told her countless times that he can’t always be available; Leia usually doesn’t mind, she’s just happy to be talking to him again. Apparently, her patience had run out, as her name immediately re-appears.

“Answer it,” Rey suggests, though he knows even though her tone is light it isn’t a request. It’s because of her in the first place that he and his parents are even on speaking terms; they’d gone nearly a decade ignoring one another, and he’d have continued to convince himself he was content with that if it hadn’t been for Rey.

They’re on his couch, him in sweatpants and her in one of his old T-shirts, the Guns ‘N’ Roses logo faded to the point where it was barely visible. His back is to the cushions, long legs stretched out so that they almost overshoot the ottoman, while she reclines, her bare legs on his lap as the hand that isn’t propping his phone up on his stomach lazily skims her calf. She sits up to reach over him, swiping to answer the call, and he rolls his eyes at her as he puts the call on speakerphone.

“Hi, Mom,” he answers dutifully, then his muscles immediately tense when he hears a choked sob come through the phone. “Mom?” he repeats, his voice now wavering, and Rey removes her legs from his lap to sit up fully on the couch, leaning her head on his shoulder as her hand wraps around his bicep—as much of it as her tiny fingers can claim, at least.

“Ben?” comes Leia’s voice, barely recognizable; the woman is nothing if not steadfast and commanding, but the voice on the other side of the call sounds _broken_. “Oh, I’m so glad I got a hold of you. Ben, it’s… it’s your father. He’s in the hospital.”

“What?” Ben questions, his throat tightening. While he and his mother exchange phone calls every other day or so, he hasn’t had much contact with his father since getting back in touch with his family, only two phone calls in as many weeks that were cut off only fifteen or twenty minutes after they’d started. The last one had ended in a brief disagreement that left them deciding to contact each other with Leia in the middle to mediate, and they hadn’t talked since save a few quick texts. He looks over to Rey, eyes wide with tears already gathering in the corners, and she meets his gaze for a moment before he stares at the phone as though Leia will tell him she’s playing some cruel joke on him. She doesn’t. “What happened?” he pushes when she doesn’t elaborate immediately.

Another sob comes from the other side. “He… he had a heart attack,” Leia chokes out, and Ben swallows hard to keep the tears from falling. “They’re saying he’s going to be okay, but they’re keeping him overnight for observation. I just figured you’d want to know.”

“Of course, I did. Do. I—Are you okay? Do you need anything? I’m—I can come down there,” he offers in a rush.

“Oh, honey, I don’t want to take you away from work, I know how much you have to do—”

“I’m coming down there,” Ben repeats, this time more firmly. “Text me what hospital and what room he’s in. I’ll get the next flight out. I’ll see you soon, Mom—I… I love you.”

He can hear that his mother is crying in earnest now, and he rubs hastily at his face to clear the few tears that have escaped on his end. “I love you, too, Ben. Thank you.” With that, Leia ends the call, and Ben looks at Rey, helplessness etched into his features.

“I’m sorry—I know we had the day off tomorrow, and we were going to… But I have to—”

Rey cuts him off. “Don’t you _dare_ apologize,” she admonishes him, standing from the couch and moving between his legs, taking his face in her hands and gently brushing away a stray tear with her thumb. “Call Mitaka. Have him come take you to the airport and get you a hotel. I’ll pack you a bag.”

“Come with me?” he blurts out, the same look on his face as always when he looks up at her— _worshipful_. “I can fly you back up here tomorrow night if you can’t get off work after, but I just—I don’t want to do this alone.”

She knows she shouldn’t do it. She has work early Monday morning, and she has a test she hasn’t fully prepared for—she’d been expecting to get some studying done while Ben worked on a leftover case file for a few hours the next day—and she’s never even _been_ on a plane, but as she watches him stare up at her like she’s his lifeline, she knows there’s no way she can tell him no. So, she nods, as impractical as it is. “I’ll pack _us_ a bag, then,” she reinforces her agreement, turning to leave him in his living room to make arrangements.

Fifteen minutes later, he’s got a travel bag slung over one shoulder, a T-shirt and hoodie tossed sloppily to join his sweatpants, only wearing socks and Adidas slides because Rey reminded him that he couldn’t walk down to the street barefoot. She’s put her leggings back on, one of his sweaters hanging loosely around her petite frame, as she gently pulls him from the elevator, their hands still joined as they climb into the backseat of the car Mitaka has pulled to the curb in front of Ben’s building. As soon as they’re buckled in, Mitaka pulls away, effortlessly weaving in and out of the still-heavy midnight traffic that stands between them and JFK.

As they pull to a stop in front of the airport terminal, Mitaka hands Rey a folder of papers from the front seat. “Boarding passes, hotel confirmation, rental car, hospital room, and contact information,” he lists off as she opens it briefly before shoving it into their bag.

“Mitaka? Thank you,” comes the soft voice of Ben as they make eye contact in the rearview mirror.

It’s pouring by the time they get to the airport, and they both jump from the car, him ushering her in front of him as he hunches over her to block her from some of the rain. They’re still soaked as they barge into the terminal, quickly going through security—Mitaka’s used Ben’s platinum status to get them priority, so it doesn’t take them long, though Rey has to stop and coax Ben onto a bench to put his shoes back on and get his wallet back into his pocket—and walking to their gate. As soon as they find it, Ben collapses into a chair near the First-Class boarding, slumped back against the cool glass behind the seat with one leg bouncing nervously. Rey slips the strap of their bag from his shoulder, settling it between his feet, and kisses the top of his head before curling up next to him on one of the uncomfortable, hard plastic chairs. She doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to make him feel better, so she stays quiet, brushing locks of wet hair from his forehead and tracing shapes on his collarbone beneath his hoodie’s collar.

“What if we’re too late?” he croaks out, his voice quiet in the nearly empty boarding area. He’s thankful his skin is still wet from the torrential downpour because he knows he’s started to cry again, silent tears streaking down his face. “What if I get there and something’s gone wrong and he’s gone and I—”

“Shh,” Rey soothes him, one hand cupping the side of his face and bringing it to her shoulder, encouraging him to bury his face in her shoulder. She can feel his shoulders shaking, can feel the warm patch where his tears contrast from the cold rain, and her arms wrap around him to hold him in place. Words still fail her; she doesn’t know what to tell him, because his fears are valid and very possible, but at the very least, she can _be_ there.

They stay like that for what feels like hours and like seconds at the same time, until the clear voice of the gate attendant rings out, calling for First-Class boarding. Ben shudders and stands, hoisting the bag onto his shoulder before offering a hand to Rey. “We’re boarding already?” she questions, regarding the empty line with suspicion; they were the only two people in the first-class area so late at night, and she’d just assumed that he’d slumped into the first seat he’d seen under the emotional weight of the day, but he nods and pulls her along, pulling the folder from their bag and passing the boarding passes and identifications to the gate agent. It’s the most he’s able to do because he feels himself shut down after slipping their things back into their bag, only moving down the long hallway and onto the plane—one foot in front of the other, he vaguely remembers through his brain’s haze—because Rey has one hand on his back, propelling him along.

They’re the only two in first class—there are only about fifteen people on the late-night flight in total, Rey notices as she counts them as they board—and Rey immediately claims the aisle seat. If his breakdown in the airport was any indication, she doubts he’ll be able to hold himself together, and if she can shield him from the world, she damn well will.

Takeoff is bumpy, the weather clearly not what anyone had hoped for, but the pilots handle it well, with the plane stabilizing easily as soon as they’ve broken cloud cover, and while Rey grips his hand tightly as she stares in wonder past him out the window, he doesn’t notice they’ve even moved until a plastic cup with strong-smelling scotch is waved underneath his nose. He jumps slightly, startled out of his thoughts by Rey pushing the drink on him, a fruity wine of her own clutched in her other hand. She usually doesn’t encourage his drinking, knowing what a problem he’s had with it even before they started dating, but if there’s any occasion where she knows he’ll need it, it’s when they’re on a sure-to-be-turbulent flight on the way to visit his father in the hospital.

Without question, he takes it, downing the bitter liquid in one gulp. “Thank you,” he says for what feels like the hundredth time that night. He _hates_ when people do things for him—people that aren’t paid to do so, at least—and the fact that it’s _her_ having to take care of _him_ when he wants it to be the other way around makes him chew his lip in shame. “You didn’t have to come with me, you didn’t have to do all this.”

Rey shakes her head and sips her wine; it will never cease to amaze her that he doesn’t think he _deserves_ this, that he’s still so convinced he’s still the same person that she’d met what felt like so long ago. “No, I didn’t have to, but I wanted to. I do want to,” she clarifies. “We’ll get through this. Together.” The way she says it leaves no room for argument, so he doesn’t, instead relaxing back into the seat and resting his head on her shoulder, managing to drift in and out of sleep for the duration of the short flight.

Before they know it, they’re landing, off the plane first, and being in DC only heightens Ben’s anxiety. It’s to the point where he’s jumping at every noise, his movements jittery, so Rey takes charge again, pushing them through the crowd of people politely as they make their way to the rental counter. Mitaka had thoughtfully put both of their names on the reservation, so even though Rey isn’t of the minimum age to rent the car herself, she’s able to talk her way through and claim the keys, ushering him outside where—thankfully—the weather is much nicer. She rolls up her sleeves as she unlocks the small Cruze they’ve been assigned, waiting until Ben is settled in the passenger seat with their bag near his feet to plug the address of the hospital in and back out of the parking lot.

It takes them a bit longer than it probably would have if Ben was mentally fit to drive; Rey isn’t used to driving in such a big city, and it shows, with her being _far_ too nice about letting people in when they merge without looking. By the end of their drive, Ben is gripping the center console so hard his knuckles have turned white, his mouth set in a fine line to avoid snapping at her. _Would it kill her to just_ go faster? The thought makes him feel guilty as soon as he thinks it; the last thing his mother needs is to have her son and his girlfriend in the hospital, too, because of his own demanding recklessness. They pull into the guest parking and Rey springs from the car, already at his side and pulling their bag out, finding their IDs before they reach the hospital counter as she flanks his side.

The smell envelops him, the mix of chemicals and death immediately making his eyes water, and he has to swallow hard to avoid the scotch he’d had on the plane making a second appearance. He’s always _hated_ hospitals, being terrified of them since he had broken his arm as a child and had to go through being fitted for the cast alone because Leia had been called off for a meeting. While he’s tense and buzzing with nervous energy, it isn’t out of place in the ICU’s reception, most others there waiting in equal or worse states of disarray.

“Ben Solo and Rey Johnson, to visit Han Solo, please,” he manages to choke out as he passes their identifications across the desk. The nurse eyes them suspiciously, glancing from both cards to the respective faces multiple times. “Family only in the ICU,” she responds in a monotone; it’s probably the hundredth time she’s had to say that on her shift, but Ben doesn’t even flinch.

“He’s my father, and this is my wife,” he blurts before Rey can offer to stay in the waiting room, pleading with his eyes for the nurse to believe him. If it backfires, if he has to walk into that room alone—he doesn’t know if he’ll make it out of there without being involuntarily committed.

 _This is my wife. This is my wife. This is my wife._ The sentence repeats in Ben's head, and he has a fleeting hope that someday, he'll say it and it will be the truth.

After a short pause, the woman huffs, but she writes them name badges all the same. “Room 316, third floor and to the right once you exit the elevator,” she directs them, and Ben thanks her—he thinks it’s the most times he’s used those two words in the last ten years—before they take off in a brisk walk towards Han’s room.

He pauses outside of it, peering in through the window and setting his jaw to try and keep himself composed. Han reclines in the hospital bed, a ventilator and an IV and countless other wires hooked up to him; Ben can hear the steady beeping of the heart monitor through the door. Leia sits in a chair next to him, one of his hands clasped in her own, normally pristine braids looking frizzy and unkempt to match the dark bags under her eyes. Ben knows she hasn’t slept—hell, he knows she probably hasn’t even moved unless to use the restroom. He looks at Rey briefly, hoping to find some answer—he, at the very least, finds the confidence that he won’t have to go through this alone, and she takes his hand and squeezes it before tilting her head towards the door.

With a deep breath, Ben grabs the handle and pushes it open, causing Leia’s head to snap up. Their eyes meet, and while he had been terrified he’d feel ashamed or overwhelmed or _angry_ , all he can feel is relief, and he lets go of Rey’s hand to sweep his mother up to her feet in a tight hug. She cries against her son’s chest, gripping the front of his hoodie for dear life as he rests his chin on the top of her head, tears soaking her hair as they hold one another. Rey almost feels awkward, intruding on such a private moment, when Ben pulls away from his mother and turns her toward the other woman in the room.

“This wasn’t really how I wanted you two to meet, but Mom, this is—this is Rey, my girlfriend. Rey, my mom,” Ben introduces them, and Leia crosses the room to pull Rey into a warm hug much like the one she’d given Ben. If Rey was feeling like she didn’t belong before, that melted away with the woman’s embrace, and she sighs as she releases the older woman.

“I’m so sorry to meet you under these circumstances, Mrs. Solo,” Rey breathes, sympathy written all over her face.

Leia shakes her head and wipes at her eyes. “None of that, now. It’s been years since I met a girl my son is involved with, and longer still since I’ve met one I liked. Call me Leia.”

With Leia wrapped up in entertaining Rey, Ben takes his mother’s seat by Han’s bedside, lifting his father’s hand from where it had fallen to the mattress, careful to avoid the IV needles. He’s choked up—he can’t form words if he decided he wanted to—and he reaches the other hand up to brush his father’s greying hair from his forehead. “Let’s give them some time. I need a coffee,” Leia states, and Rey looks at Ben for approval, but he’s too wrapped up in staring at his father’s sleeping form, so she nods and joins Leia in slipping out of the room silently.

It’s minutes before Ben finds his voice, cracking and desperate-sounding as he fights to speak through his tears. “Hi, Dad,” he starts, a watery chuckle leaving him at how awkward he sounds. It’s only then that he realizes how long it’s been since he called Han _Dad_ ; it’s usually _Han_ when they speak, keeping the identifier that Ben hadn’t always been sure he deserved out of conversation entirely. “I don’t know if you can hear me—I went to school for law, not medicine—but I—I really hope you can. I don’t really know what to say, but—I want to try. I need to know that if—that I said everything I want to, just in case—” He can’t bring himself to finish his sentences. He can’t bring himself to consider the possibility that his words are falling on deaf ears, never to be heard by the man they were meant for.

“I know we haven’t—I know _I_ haven’t made our relationship that great,” he states, tears streaming down his face in earnest, causing him to use his free hand to wipe the sleeve of his hoodie across his face. “It’s really difficult, I’m sure it’s hard for you too, but I—I hope we can—I want to talk to you again. I want to watch old World War II documentaries with you even if I don’t understand most of what they’re talking about. I want you to come to New York and watch a Yankees game with me—even if you’ll probably root for the Red Sox just to spite me. Rey does that, too,” he laughs. “I want you to meet Rey. You two would love each other. She probably knows more about old cars than you do, and she’ll remind you of it every chance she gets.” The pride that laces in his tone when he speaks about her is obvious, and he gets so wrapped up in reminiscing that he doesn’t notice that Han’s breathing has shifted slightly, a more natural pattern to it than the machine-fueled rise-and-fall of before.

Ben runs his fingers over Han’s, squeezing it like Rey had squeezed his to reassure him only moments before. “I’m really worried about you, Dad,” he admits, his head tipping down to stare at the mattress, unable to stand the sight of Han attached to so many machines for much longer. “Please—I know I don’t—You don’t ever have to forgive me, or even talk to me again, but please wake up. Mom needs you, _I need you_. I… I love you, Dad,” he whispers as he dissolves into another round of sobs.

Han’s eyes open, and he cranes his neck to partially slip the ventilator mask from in front of his mouth. “Hi… Really worried about you… I’m Dad,” he mutters, the trademark scoundrel grin taking over his features as he looks down at an awestruck Ben.

The old man made a _dad joke_ after almost dying of a heart attack.

  
“Dad—you’re— _Mom! Rey!_ ” Ben shouts, slamming the nurse call button over and over as the two women rush into the room, Leia yanking another chair up to the other side of the bed and grabbing Han’s other hand, her head dipping to bring it to her lips and kiss it. She’s only allowed to remain so close for a few seconds as nurses swarm around, hastily removing the ventilator and the other unnecessary contraptions now that he’s awake, and Rey wraps her arms around Ben’s shoulders from behind, leaning on him as she nuzzles the side of his face. As he turns to kiss her, Han lets out a wolf whistle from the bed, causing Leia to let out a relieved bark of laughter.

The room was soon overtaken by peals of laughter, all of them joining in, and it’s as Ben sits and clutches his father’s hand again that he knows they’re going to be okay.


End file.
